Teletourism – a Blessing in Disguise

A recent conference into the interaction between tourism and media outlined a promising new field of research.

Goathland's village green

“Heartbeat” is a series about a London Copper who quits the met to start a new life in deepest Yorkshire. At its peak in the mid 90’s nearly 17 million English viewers regularly tuned in. The series has been sold to more than 40 countries and is a regular staple on the TV-slots, watched by the elderly around Northern Europe. Together with “The Royal” about the cottage hospital  "St Aidan's Royal Free Hospital" in nearby fictive Elsinby, “Heartbeat” has continued to capture the essence of rural nostalgia and the latest instalment was filmed in 2006.

“Heartbeat” is filmed in real life location “Goathland” located on border of the Goathland Moor right in the middle of a National Park. The village is habited by 450 people and is currently visited by over a million visitors pr. year. Traditionally this has of course invited managers to study the impact of the tourists on the local population and the moor itself. In a paper presented by Dr. Tom Murdue at a conference at Nottingham a more perceptive analysis is presented. In short Goathland is shown to be a site for continuous negotiations whereby the locals and the tourists constitute the idea of “the rural” as opposed to the “urban”.

The point of view of the locals 
The locals (although primarily ex-urban newcomers) are naturally rather tired of being extras in an extension of the Yorkshire television show. Accordingly they wish for the old days when real tourists came and stayed in the guesthouses and B&B’s in order “to spend a day at the Moor walking about”. Nowadays, they claim, the tourists are loaded off from coaches to spend next to nothing, instead of staying on and imbibing the real atmosphere. Most of the locals have accordingly implemented minor changes in order to be able to withdraw from the hassle, like e.g. moving their drawing room to the back of the house.

Further: As the tourists are – well tourists - claims the spokespeople in town, the tourists ought to be educated through the establishments of educational centres, heritage parks or the like. Getting them rurally competent, so to speak.

“I wouldn’t want to live here”
As opposed to this the tourists themselves are not so easily pigeonholed, writes Dr. Murdue. They recognise to a certain extent that their own presence is busily destroying the small village. It is too commercialised, too touristy. However, the tourists are adamant on their right to visit Goathland. This locality does not belong to the locals, but to Britain as such. As such it is a shame, that the village no longer represents the ideal epiphenomena of rural life, but instead a kind of exurban pastiche, claims the tourist.

Conclusion  
The interesting thing about this anthropological study is thus, that it shows how the people of Goathland and the Heartbeat tourists share their constructions of what an ideal rural life should be like. The real differentiating factor is thus not so much the differing rural competence, but rather the shared opinion that the other part is not playing their proper role in this rural performance. The locals are according to the tourists not authentic and the tourists are according to the locals not behaving properly.  

Tourists do not destroy rural idyls. Modernity and media does.  

Related Information
Read the article by Dr. Tom Murdue here (pdf) together with several other interesting papers that were presented at this conference.